Update, 28 March: The European Parliament has issued a list of FAQs from the Copyright Directive that was passed yesterday. It states that it arrived towards this legislation through a ‘thorough and democratic process’ which began in 2013, and included multiple studies, impact assessments, discussions, proposals and votes. The Parliament explained that this directive does not target the ‘ordinary user’ but impacts large online platforms and news aggregators like Google's YouTube, Google News or Facebook. It adds that due to outdated copyright laws and rules, artists, news publishers and journalists’ work was circulating freely, letting online platforms and news aggregators “reap all the rewards”, taking earnings away from the former group. The draft directive only ensures that their rights are better enforced, without creating any new rights. “The draft directive intends to oblige giant internet platforms and news aggregators (like YouTube or GoogleNews) to pay content creators (artists/musicians/actors and news houses and their journalists) what they truly owe them…” In the absence of fair remuneration and licensing agreements with the artists and media houses, platforms will be directly liable if they host a piece of work with an unpaid license fee. “The expectation is that the draft directive will push the online platforms to finally roll out a policy to fairly remunerate all those from whose work they make their money.” On censorship, it says “The directive will not censor. By increasing legal liability, it will increase pressure on internet platforms to conclude fair remuneration deals with the creators of work…
